🚬 Up in smoke

The federal government has launched a new policy aimed at helping tobacco farmers transition to alternative crops as they leave the sector.

Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of raw tobacco and one of its top producers. But domestic output has declined over recent decades as smoking rates fall and other countries gain ground as suppliers.

An estimated 138,000 families currently farm tobacco in Brazil, according to the producers’ association Afubra, which represents growers in the three southern states home to most of the country’s cigarette tobacco production. That total has fallen from 186,000 in 2011 and roughly 236,000 in 2005. The northeastern state of Bahia also has a smaller but significant tobacco production and export sector, focused on a different variety that is used to make cigars.

Brazil is one of more than 180 countries that in 2005 committed to…

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